She has been in LA/Pasadena with her kids for the past two days, which has left me to roam the cliffs of Torrey Pines Glliderport, and the back alleys of the village. Our old home is still shocking blue. I walked past it last night on my way home from the fish store (El Pescador). Only our old place had anyone in it at the time. The new people have hung bright red metallic spirals from the ceiling. It looks like a used car lot! All the rest of the condos were dark and empty. I lingered and observed, but finally moved on as soon as I was joined by a curious bum who stopped next to me and joined me in looking upward. He knew not at what he was looking, but looked anyway. He was dirty and smelled of lived-in clothing, tobacco, and too much alcohol. He began muttering gibberish in short bursts, then laughed at the end of each burst and began his gibberish anew.
I was certain that he would ask for money, cigarettes, or something else, so I left before he could ask. I wouldn't have known what he might have asked for anyway In a place that has Aston-Martins, Bentleys, Lamborgini's, and Ferraris on almost every block, it is an awful contrast to find homeless people sleeping under hibiscus bushes and picking through ashtrays and garbage dumpsters.
I'm going to go back to Torrey Pnes Gliderport to try to catch the morning light!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Torrey Pines Gliderport - Powered by the Wind and the Sun
I relinquished my prime parking spot near the LJ mini-marathon-madness so that I could drive to the Torrey Pines Gliderport to water the plants at Morgan's bench ( www.morganrohde.com/ ). La Jolla was filled with weekenders, all trying to park where there is very little parking. The tourists flock to the shops and restaurants on Prospect Street because they don't know any better; and probably because everyone else seems to be doing the same thing ("So it must be good, right"?).
Herd mentality again. The food on Prospect Street doesn't have to be good, because tourists will come as incessantly as the waves that roll in from the Pacific. I believe that if the restaurant owners proclaim that their fare is "The Finest Seafood in the world", then the tourists who pay twenty times what the meal was actually worth, will leave with a fabricated memory of having eaten fine food in La Jolla.
The shops (I meant to write "Shoppes") of La Jolla are best known for their exorbitant prices and short lives. While they are alive, they are stocked with "chic", but "chic" itself is doomed by "nouveau chic". Nothing is allowed to get very old in La Jolla; and that includes people - especially women. Women are locked in a futile battle against time. Time always wins, but not before millions of dollars have been spent on increasing breast size by every means except pneumatic. Liposucking fat is big business here, as is injectiing plastics to refill areas that have been claimed by gravity. Botoxins, collagens, and almost everything grown in the Amazon is trotted out as the "miracle cure" that will reverse aging. These people have enough money and vanity to pay for all of this..........while millions of people in this country and around the world are starving.
I've wandered.
I love the Torrey Pines Glider Port flytorrey.com because nothing there requires the burning of gasoline, diesel, coal, or anything else. Everything that flies there flies on the wind from the west. All electricity used there is generated by solar panels. UCSD and the Salk Institute, and even the City of San Diego are all trying to find ways to get at the land used by the Torrey Pines Gliderport. I'll return to this..........it's a personal crusade against commercialism and environmental destruction performed under the guise of "the public good". The city of San Diego (nearly bankrupt) spent $500,000 on a "study program" to determine how to best use the land. It is $500,000 dollars in the pockets of people who will return a report that says what they were told it should say.
Torrey Pines Golf Course routinely pumps millions of gallons of water every week to keep the golf course green and ready to host the next U.S. Open.........a golf course for the judges, politicians, and profiteers of San Diego. The Torrey Pines Glider Port, which is immediately adjacent to the well-soaked golf course, was recently sued for using lawn sprinklers occasionally to grow grass and prevent erosion. If this seems like a double standard........it is!
Tomorrow, the herd will awaken early, drink their "energy" drinks, meditate, affirm to themselves that they are worthy, and then they will gather and run a "half marathon" from Del Mar to La Jolla. Thousand of them. There are already platoons of portable toilets in the streets and on the sidewalks on the route of the "Half Marathon". (Shouldn't it be called a "THON"?) Why does this herd get portable toilets, street closings, free water and mementoes of the running of the herd?
I don't know.
At Torrey Pines Glider Port, the people are more resourceful, less coddled, more adventurous, less in need of therapy and idling vehicles. In fact, the people at Torrey Pines Glider Port embody all of the values the herd professes.
"Those who can......do" "Those who can't.......form a herd"
Herd mentality again. The food on Prospect Street doesn't have to be good, because tourists will come as incessantly as the waves that roll in from the Pacific. I believe that if the restaurant owners proclaim that their fare is "The Finest Seafood in the world", then the tourists who pay twenty times what the meal was actually worth, will leave with a fabricated memory of having eaten fine food in La Jolla.
The shops (I meant to write "Shoppes") of La Jolla are best known for their exorbitant prices and short lives. While they are alive, they are stocked with "chic", but "chic" itself is doomed by "nouveau chic". Nothing is allowed to get very old in La Jolla; and that includes people - especially women. Women are locked in a futile battle against time. Time always wins, but not before millions of dollars have been spent on increasing breast size by every means except pneumatic. Liposucking fat is big business here, as is injectiing plastics to refill areas that have been claimed by gravity. Botoxins, collagens, and almost everything grown in the Amazon is trotted out as the "miracle cure" that will reverse aging. These people have enough money and vanity to pay for all of this..........while millions of people in this country and around the world are starving.
I've wandered.
I love the Torrey Pines Glider Port flytorrey.com because nothing there requires the burning of gasoline, diesel, coal, or anything else. Everything that flies there flies on the wind from the west. All electricity used there is generated by solar panels. UCSD and the Salk Institute, and even the City of San Diego are all trying to find ways to get at the land used by the Torrey Pines Gliderport. I'll return to this..........it's a personal crusade against commercialism and environmental destruction performed under the guise of "the public good". The city of San Diego (nearly bankrupt) spent $500,000 on a "study program" to determine how to best use the land. It is $500,000 dollars in the pockets of people who will return a report that says what they were told it should say.
Torrey Pines Golf Course routinely pumps millions of gallons of water every week to keep the golf course green and ready to host the next U.S. Open.........a golf course for the judges, politicians, and profiteers of San Diego. The Torrey Pines Glider Port, which is immediately adjacent to the well-soaked golf course, was recently sued for using lawn sprinklers occasionally to grow grass and prevent erosion. If this seems like a double standard........it is!
Tomorrow, the herd will awaken early, drink their "energy" drinks, meditate, affirm to themselves that they are worthy, and then they will gather and run a "half marathon" from Del Mar to La Jolla. Thousand of them. There are already platoons of portable toilets in the streets and on the sidewalks on the route of the "Half Marathon". (Shouldn't it be called a "THON"?) Why does this herd get portable toilets, street closings, free water and mementoes of the running of the herd?
I don't know.
At Torrey Pines Glider Port, the people are more resourceful, less coddled, more adventurous, less in need of therapy and idling vehicles. In fact, the people at Torrey Pines Glider Port embody all of the values the herd professes.
"Those who can......do" "Those who can't.......form a herd"
Runners and their fumes
I walked to the place on Prospect where Laura and I lived for a year. The Recreation Center was jammed with healthy people who came to register to run in a race tomorrow. There were signs and banners proclaiming the "Green-ness" of the event, but every booth had a smoky, gasoline-powered generator; and there were large trucks parked on the street. Their noxious diesel engines were idling and gasoline-powered generators were running continuously. They're still parked there, fouling the air. They won't leave until 7 pm.
Almost every runner drove a car there (more pollution). The La Jolla Parking Nazis were swarming like angry bees, chalking tires and writing tickets by the hundreds. Untethered children ran away from parents who didn't want to lose their places in line. The parents held their ground but screamed threats or promises of future toys and "goodies" at their children. A woman who was looking at sweat-absorbing headbands had a dark green Frisbee thrown at the side of her head by an escaped and unsocialized child.
If a person really wants to run, can't they just run? Unless this running registration is really a parking ticket-based scheme, why is all the organization and commercial activity needed? Is it really needed, or is all this "organizing" merely evidence of the herd mentality of people who are compulsive and obsessed? Was it necessary to have a third rate band mechanically belting out old songs so loudly that they could be heard from four blocks away. The wind should have carried the noise to the south, but it was so loud that a discordant "Surfin' USA" overpowered the elements and flooded the area. Thank God the Beach Boys weren't runners.
The band had gasoline-powered generator too.
A peaceful park turned into a smoky, noxious, gasoline and diesel-powered bedlam. | have much to learn about having fun.
Almost every runner drove a car there (more pollution). The La Jolla Parking Nazis were swarming like angry bees, chalking tires and writing tickets by the hundreds. Untethered children ran away from parents who didn't want to lose their places in line. The parents held their ground but screamed threats or promises of future toys and "goodies" at their children. A woman who was looking at sweat-absorbing headbands had a dark green Frisbee thrown at the side of her head by an escaped and unsocialized child.
If a person really wants to run, can't they just run? Unless this running registration is really a parking ticket-based scheme, why is all the organization and commercial activity needed? Is it really needed, or is all this "organizing" merely evidence of the herd mentality of people who are compulsive and obsessed? Was it necessary to have a third rate band mechanically belting out old songs so loudly that they could be heard from four blocks away. The wind should have carried the noise to the south, but it was so loud that a discordant "Surfin' USA" overpowered the elements and flooded the area. Thank God the Beach Boys weren't runners.
The band had gasoline-powered generator too.
A peaceful park turned into a smoky, noxious, gasoline and diesel-powered bedlam. | have much to learn about having fun.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Back in La Jolla -Again
I'm in La Jolla again and unwilling to pay my hotel for the necessity of parking my rental car. I think that if hotels get away with assigning costs to car parking, then it will be logical to expect them to levy "sheet fees", or "toilet tissue fees", or even a fee for the water used to shower with. Like most, if not all American businesses, hotels simply want money. Their needs would be met if we reserved a room, paid for it, but never used it. They could sell and re-sell the same room to as many people as would want to pay them for that privilege.
It is greedy and disingenuous for a hotel to assess a fee for parking (stabling) the vehicles that bring customers to them. We decided not to pay, so our car is out on the street, hiding in plain sight from the La Jolla Parking Nazis (LJPN). The car is a Chevrolet rendition of a PT Cruiser, and is immensely ugly. It's also screaming bright red. RED!!!! BRIGHT RED!!!!!!!!!
I'll be back in a little while. I'm going to go down to the hotel garage to see how many people paid. I hope that it will be empty, but I'm certain that people will not question this new expense.
It is greedy and disingenuous for a hotel to assess a fee for parking (stabling) the vehicles that bring customers to them. We decided not to pay, so our car is out on the street, hiding in plain sight from the La Jolla Parking Nazis (LJPN). The car is a Chevrolet rendition of a PT Cruiser, and is immensely ugly. It's also screaming bright red. RED!!!! BRIGHT RED!!!!!!!!!
I'll be back in a little while. I'm going to go down to the hotel garage to see how many people paid. I hope that it will be empty, but I'm certain that people will not question this new expense.
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